In game ethical questions

[Captain Morgan]

Those were some good times.

[Oseleon]

Just a little StarWars geekery...
The Jedi Mind Trick, in itself is the domination of another's will.  
It should be used sparingly and any use might warrent a Dark Side point or at least some aknowledgement that another way should be sought first..

Obi-Wan said something to that effect in the Star Wars Radio Drama when he used the Mind Trick to help Luke get more money off selling his speeder so they could pay Solo

[Spriggan]

See, that's why I prefer Bounty Hunters.  We don't use eithics .


Also, one Darkside point for Wizards unofficialy dropping SW D20.  There are no products for it in 2005, and Lucas Arts dosen't list it as an official SW product anymore.

[The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers]

i dunno. Maybe someone will buy rights to it along with WEG's system and we'll see GOOD products for Star Wars soon.

[Spriggan]

Na, one of the people that use to write for Wizards (and got fired last october when they told him they were dropping the line) has no plans to sell it since the contract for the RPG also includes all the CCG and Miniature lincences.  They've got the rights for another 8 years or something.

He, the former emploie, said it was one of their worst selling lines and they lost too much money on it.  Though WoTC *might* rework the rules to work with D20 Future (which others have said is WoTC replacement for SW).

[The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers]

eh. It sold poor because they made it d20. You know me, I'm not a d20 hater. I *like* d20, and I think it works for a lot of things. But I've never thought d20 and Star Wars were a decent fit. Maybe if they came up with new mechanics it'd work.

[Spriggan]

I think the poor suplements hurt it more then being D20.

[The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers]

I think  of it as an extension of the same thing. It's hard to make a good supplement for system that jsut doesn't work with it's setting. However, the worst crime I witnessed (other than the piss-poor job they did on the Alien Anthology... that WAS organized badly and c'mon, most of those races you'd have never heard of unless you were a mega-fanboy, and it's not like a lot of fantasy monsters which come from SOMEWHERE) was the pod-racing mini-game in the Tatooine planetary guide. It was worse than a mini-game in Final Fantasy. The reason it sucked so bad, however, was a direct result of it needing to be based out of the skillsets and features of teh d20 system. Too bad.

[Fellfrosch]

I don't think it's even possible for a world without a Star Wars RPG to exist, especially with Ep 3 coming out this summer. If WotC has a license that valuable they'll never just sit on it, they'll sell it or, at the very least, outsource it to a third party.

[Spriggan]

They're not allowed to outsource it, part of their contract.  Maybe they'll renegotiate.  As for not doing anything becasue of EP 3, well they never did release and EP 2 sourcebook (its one of the ones that got cancled).  I think WoTC would rather just sit on it then loose money publishing it.

[Captain Morgan]

The reason they never did an Epsiode 2 source book is becuase they revised the main rulebook to include epsiode 2 material. Updated the mechanics and made it into a sweet game. I almost perfered the revised edition to the old weg rules. It worked out well for us playing it.

[Fellfrosch]

If their contract doesn't allow them to outsource (what is your source for that?), and they won't publish new stuff for it, then changing the contract won't be hard because Lucasarts will beg them to do it. Someone, somewhere, can make money with a Star Wars RPG, and everyone's going to want a piece of it.

[Spriggan]

I'm just going on what the afor mentioned ex-writer said.  Now I misinterperted his statment on the outsouceing, they didn't say they couldn't, they said they wouldn't (at least not to any small companies).  And the fact is Wizards hasn't put the lincence for sale or lease as far as anyone knows.  I'm not sure if the game lincenese are the same or different since I've read different accounts from different people.

But the fact remains that WoTC isn't trying to sell the rights, nor are they developing any books for the line that anyone knows about.

Also there was an Episode 2 source book in the works, though it covered all of the major battles in the Clone wars, so stuff in EP 2 and inbetween EP3.  I read this on the WoTC forum, it may not officialy be titled "EP 2 Sourcebook" but that is what people were calling it.

oh, and I thought I'd list the author too, http://www.jdwiker.com/books/index.html.

I had an instresting thought on this when I read his discription of D20 Future:

The starship section, for example, which I wrote, was completely rewritten during the development process. That's a pity, since it was meant to enable Star Wars players to recreate their favorite starships using the d20 Modern rules.

 Which makes me think:

1) WoTC wants to use a standerdized D20 modern rules for their non-fantasy games.
2) Either WoTC is dumping SW or maybe trying to work a way to pull a gurps.  IE have a rule book (in this case D20 Future) and a setting book (ie Starwars).  Would be a cool idea, though I doubt LucasArts would go for it.

[Spriggan]

I was thinking about the outsourceing topic while I was putting out breakfast (it's a great time for reflection and personal thoughts) and I don't think it would be a viable option.  I'm takeing a few liberties in this example since I don't know what the actual linces is and if I misuderstand how this works please let me know.

So lets say the deal is, between LA and WoTC, that all the profits from the sales of the books is split down the middle 50-50 (for simplicities sake).  So if a $40 book grants a $10 profit (again for simplicity) that would mean LA gets $5 for each book and WoTC gets $5.

Now say WoTC decides to outsourse the books to another companey, Fell Incorperated (it's like Kids incorperated, though more sining) and they split the propit 66-33.  So now on that same book sale LA would get $5, WoTC would get $3 and FI would get $2.

I'm haveing a real hard time seeing how that would be worth FI's investment.  I don't think one could build a sucsessful busniess plan around that, especialy when we allready know WoTC wasn't makeing money when they made $5 a sale.

Now, that's assumeing WoTC wasn't publishing the books anymore.  If they were, why bother outsourceing when they could just keep on hireing Feelance writers like they tend to do?

One more thing that might lead to my mistake (ie that WoTC couldn't outsource) being true.  If you look at the back, and on the inside of any of the SW books from Wizards you don't see anywhere they book being owned or copyrited to WoTC.  In fact the books are puplished as a LucasBook, not a WoTC publication.  All the Copyrights are listed thusly "© 200x Lucasfilm Ltd. & TM All rights Reserved.  Used under authorization".  Now that would leave one to think that WoTC dosen't actualy own anything they're publishing, so how could they outsource the RPG to another company?

[Spriggan]

I'm just makeing this another post since it's another topic.

Someone, somewhere, can make money with a Star Wars RPG, and everyone's going to want a piece of it.

I think that could be argued.  I mean Wizards couldn't do it and they're the largest RPG company out there by a very large margin.  They also couldn't do it with the CCG, which I understand dosen't sell well.  Currently the only SW product that sells realy well is the miniature game, and that's not going to last long (probaly not past the year, which I bring up in my review of Clone Strike).

Also, and this is just what I read while looking some of this other stuff up so take it for what its worth, WEG didn't have the SW licence bought out from them by Wizards like Decipher.  WEG actualy didn't want it anymore becasue they weren't makeing money off the lincence.  And WEG's game was way better suported and a higher quality then SW D20 (in my opinion).